


Staircases

by eurudike



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Post-Half-Blood Prince AU, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 19:42:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7545531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurudike/pseuds/eurudike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Harry visited Malfoy’s home, he was miserable and desperate and unbearably uncomfortable. He was set on edge by the way the door closing echoed in the hatefully majestic entrance chamber; all his instincts were switched to fight by the sound of his own footsteps. He gritted his teeth when Malfoy shook his hand, tried to avoid staring around the giant library they sat in, and lost his temper when Malfoy casually insulted him. He had no idea what to say, and he drank more than he’d intended in an effort to drown the engulfing silence, the gripping discomfort that surrounded them both. He hated every word that came out of Malfoy’s mouth.<br/>When he was leaving and Malfoy asked him to come by next week, Harry accepted without so much as a moment’s hesitation.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>The war looked a little different in this timeline; after it's over, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy don't have much left aside from one another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Staircases

_L'esprit d'escalier_ \- The words you think of at the bottom of the staircase; the perfect response that comes too late.

 

***

“I love you,” Harry murmurs, his voice coming out muffled as he presses his face into Draco’s shoulder, savoring the warmth of soft flesh against his own. He feels Draco’s hands brush absentmindedly through his hair, never able to lose the traces of restless energy, but Harry himself lays still, body thrumming with contentment. Draco hums quietly in response, the lazy vibrations of his chest tickling Harry’s skin.

“How much?” Draco asks him, settling into a teasing game that has long since become familiar and dear.

“As much as the entire ocean,” Harry whispers gently into Draco’s neck. “As vast as deserts stretching on for miles, as bountiful as rolling hills, as lively as fields of those little yellow flowers you love. As tall as mountains, as wide as the endless cosmos, as true as an arrow flying toward the perfect center.”

His voice curls, sweet and low in the soft tone he has perfected in his hours with Draco, around the words that drift from his mouth. Once, he despaired of his inability to speak softly, with tenderness, without his voice catching and coming out gruff; those concerns feel far behind him now. He raises his head to look into the shining grey eyes before him, deeper than anything he has seen before, deep enough to get lost in.

“As strong as earthquakes. As devastating as bombs. As aching as war wounds.”

***

A flash of green. A figure barreling into his side. An orange beam of light hitting his arm. Blood running into the ground, meeting stained dirt. Red strands twirling. Fingers snatching at his leg.

Red flares he fights to block. Whirls to the right to avoid being hit. Another flash of green lights up his vision, blinding him; a hard weight against his shoulder; a sharp pain in his thigh. A scream from his left; an orange glow; twists away from a cackle; his throat soar from yelling; a green flare from his own wand.

A _crack_ rings out above him. Dirt presses against his fist; a hand on his back. The blood on his cheek is not his own.

“Harry!”

He dodges to the right. Shakes off the hand on his elbow. Brushes a woman’s hair from his face. Throws a spell under his arm; he isn’t sure where it hits. Shoves at a figure suddenly before him. A branch catches his ankle. A branch with fingers.

“Harry!”

Kicks out at a threat. Jerks away from a raised arm. The light stretching from his wand ends in a flash of yellow. _Boom!_ The world is colored green. A point strikes his stomach. A hand reaching out.

“Harry!”

He reaches in front of him. Pulls his hand away from a green blaze. Ron’s face before him. Mouth open to call out his name.

Another hand grasps his arm. Draws him away from the falling splotch of red. Another flash lights the world, blinds him.

***

_Battle rages_.

“It didn’t strike you to consider that?! You never take the time to think!” A hand jerks up. His face twists away. Harry whirls toward the messy bed.

“What did you think I meant?! I didn’t expect you to be _insane_!” Harry shoots at him. A shock of hair flares out. His collar flaps. Shining grey eyes that won’t meet Harry’s.

“You never expect anything! You never understand, you never learn, all you do is blame everyone else!” A step forward. Draco’s eyebrows jump, the curve of his mouth turning to anger. His hands fly up. A sharp noise escapes his throat.

“Oh please, as if there’s anyone else to blame! I’m just sharing the credit. _Fairly_.” Arms press together, crossing in defiance. Pointed lines edge his mouth and Harry feels a pain in his chest.

“I did nothing wrong here. You’re not satisfied with anything, and you blame it all on me, and you won’t look me in the eyes!” Draco’s bright gaze turns to Harry’s, fixing it with his usual sharp intensity. Harry’s shoulders ease down.

They fight all too often.

“I don’t even remember what we were fighting about,” Harry breathes. The shining grey of Draco’s eyes instantly steadies him, drawing them together and drawing out the stillness that follows every fight. They slide together without hesitation, mouths slipping open as their bodies skim against one another. They each know the sweep of the other more than anything, in and out.

It’s enough to whisk away the remnants of yells and screams and cries and wails, sounds of targeted anger.

***

_A flash of green. A scream, far enough away that it doesn’t seem real. A sudden weight, caught purely on instinct._

Amber liquid. It sparkles in the crystalline cups Malfoy insists on using, claims are more civilized than flasks and that he’s not a soldier anymore, he’s allowed to use a real glass. Harry once tried to convince him that flasks were simply more efficient, easier to use and to carry, but he’s long since learned that Malfoy can’t be convinced of much.

The light glances off the drink, reflecting onto the walls. The glass cuts it in pieces to create geometric shapes, all sharp corners and dancing edges. Harry’s eyes are drawn to the shimmering, unable to look away from the rolling movement of the liquid as Malfoy moves his hand in subtle, almost unconscious gestures. The movement reminds Harry of tides, up and down on each side of the glass, the beats matching Malfoy’s voice. Which, Harry realizes, has been silenced with a sigh.

“Potter, are you even listening to me?” comes Malfoy’s exasperated drawl. Harry glances up. “No, of course not. I know you only come here for the scotch, but would it kill you to hold up a polite conversation while you systematically drink yourself into an early grave?”

“I don’t come for just the scotch!” Harry replies in tones of deepest offense. “I come for your other whiskey too.” Glancing at Malfoy’s face, Harry sees the ghost of a smile, though his grey eyes remain cool and tired, glassy like fog inside a crystal ball.

“Ah yes, those as well.” Malfoy’s remote voice holds the barest hint of sarcasm, but it’s brushed away before Harry can grasp at it and illicit some sort of banter. “As I was saying, I never knew what happened to her until you told me. I assumed, of course, but the last time I saw her was months before it would have happened. Did you know that I captured her once, when I was still spying?”

“She did mention that one time. Before you switched.” Harry remembered a lot of stories about Malfoy going around during the war. He was the only Death Eater whose captives ever escaped. Funny that no one had put that together to suspect him as a spy. “Said you’d made a mistake, misinterpreted something she said and ended up not locking her up properly. You know, back then, we all thought you were just sloppy. How’d you get the Death Eaters to let you keep screwing up?”

“I passed it off as someone else’s mistake. Strange how little guilt you feel watching murderers die in your place,” Malfoy says without humor, but with a trace of venom. Harry recalls an offhand comment he once made about fear blocking out more important emotions; about how sometimes the purest feelings are the ugliest. “But as you know, they did figure it out eventually. And then there was nothing to do but run. Or fly, as it were.”

_An intricate web of colored beams, crisscrossing and colliding almost poetically. Zoomed out, the battlefield could seem peaceful. A streak of light much closer, blinding in the darkness. The smell of burning twigs and gripping panic, inescapable even for a moment._

***

They stand in silence, looking one another up and down. Harry drinks in every inch of skin that he can see, and although he knows he’s seen it a hundred times before and will continue seeing it for ages hence, he finds it nearly impossible to tear his eyes away from any one spot. He never wants to stop seeing the line of Draco’s thigh; he knows he will dream tonight of the fold of Draco’s inner elbow; he’s mesmerized by the curve just above Draco’s navel. Beneath it all, beneath the love and the longing and the awe that he feels, he can’t chase away the irrational fear that it will all be torn away from him; that this is truly the last chance he will ever be offered to gaze at the pale skin, sharp lines, strong angles and unexpected curves that he has writ down in memory so dutifully, stretching out his mind as if it could caress.

Harry never would have believed that he would one day learn the soft line of Draco Malfoy’s ankle better than he knows his own face in the mirror.

“Hey,” Draco’s voice whispers, made tender and lovely as only Draco knows how, as Harry never would have expected from him. “Harry.” It’s a tone that demands nothing, that recognizes the stretch of time in this moment as impenetrable and unhurried. And yet Harry feels the call for him to look up, the siren that would draw a warrior to his death. Blinking slowly, Harry raises his gaze to pointed chin, soft cheek, cruel mouth with the slightest gentle twist upward.

The quirk of Draco’s mouth is among the things Harry loves best about him. It rests uneasily on hateful lines, but shifts readily to angry sneers, gracefully sweet smiles, flashing grins, and the determined fire that Harry can never quite hope to grasp. The shapes it forms are always unexpected.

Just looking at his tender smile, almost too miniscule to see but endlessly confident in itself, Harry feels the silly grin that warps his own face, the tug in his lower abdomen and the constant draw toward soft skin, the sea to the moon or the spirit heading toward the light.

He doesn’t resist.

He doesn’t know how.

***

_As much as the entire ocean._

_As aching as war wounds._

***

The first time Harry visited Malfoy’s home, he was miserable and desperate and unbearably uncomfortable. He was set on edge by the way the door closing echoed in the hatefully majestic entrance chamber; all his instincts were switched to _fight_ by the sound of his own footsteps. He gritted his teeth when Malfoy shook his hand, tried to avoid staring around the giant library they sat in, and lost his temper when Malfoy casually insulted him. He had no idea what to say, and he drank more than he’d intended in an effort to drown the engulfing silence, the gripping discomfort that surrounded them both. He hated every word that came out of Malfoy’s mouth.

When he was leaving and Malfoy asked him to come by next week, Harry accepted without so much as a moment’s hesitation.

By now, Harry has grown comfortable sitting in the armchair across from Malfoy’s, a drink in his hand. He’s learned to communicate with Malfoy, something he didn’t pick up in even the slimmest form when they were fighting alongside one another. He knows the scowl that settles on Malfoy’s brow when certain topics are brought up, has learned the lilt of Malfoy’s voice when speaking of something he loves and recognizes when it tips dangerously into the territory of - _anger pain confusion grief terror loss blood running falling_ \- dark memories. He understands the things that Malfoy says that once aggravated his temper, and sees what he means by them (not that they don’t still spark a fight). He waits anxiously for the slice of Malfoy’s laugh. He’s become accustomed to Malfoy’s sharp grin, flashing like a surreptitious knife, and spends most of his time watching carefully for the barest hint of it, as that’s usually all Malfoy gives before ensconcing it away again.

He no longer hates every word out of Malfoy’s mouth.

That doesn’t, of course, mean he’s any more comfortable.

***

Blue light flashes behind him. He practically hears it striking, almost feels the thud of someone – _friend comrade schoolmate_ – a soldier falling behind him. He smells the singed –

He keeps running.

A steady web of lights shoots over his head. Crisscrossing, colliding, infinitely different than when seen from above. He can’t spare the time to watch them. Or watch out for them.

He runs.

He’s never felt _brave_. He doesn’t want to.

But the scream to his left doesn’t stand for running, and for a confused moment ( _he whirls to the side, shooting spells before they spring into his head, hopping to dodge and absolutely, positively, undeniably and against all sense,_ not _running_ ) he isn’t sure what’s different; what distinguishes this scream from the thousands of others he’s heard and he hears, compounding on top of one another in a torturous symphony.

There are very few people who a man can recognize by screams alone.

An emerald blaze fires from his wand. Still hopping, still dodging, he’s finally moved in front of screaming, pale skin and blond hair.

***

Draco’s screams echo throughout the room. They bounce off of the walls, collide with the chairs in the corner and the bed they share, hollow out Harry’s eardrums; hollow out Harry’s mind. His own voice tears at his throat as it forces its way out, bellows finding words that Harry can’t think. It’s the same temper he’s always had, set off by Draco just as it always has been, but his mind is stuck on the horrible thought of Draco leaving; he can’t see for fear, can’t breathe on the precipice where they’ve settled, can’t think but for panic. Yet the words still find their way out, aiming to hurt.

Draco always finds the words that sting the most.

Harry knows he should stop yelling, should calm his anger and calm Draco’s, should try to protect this wonderful delicate world they’ve created. But when Draco lashes out, Harry lashes out in return. That’s the way it’s always been.

They fight all too often.

“That’s it!” Draco screams at him. “I’m done living in your twisted fantasy world! We don’t even _like_ each other, remember?!” He storms toward the door; Harry’s frozen, fallen silent, powerless to stop him. Sick panic twists in Harry’s stomach, threatening to choke him. He feels the room tip, but he can’t move, can’t find the words to make Draco stay.

The collision of Draco pushing past him calls Harry to action, centering him slightly and reminding him: this is _urgent_.

“Wait!” he chokes out, his voice thick with desperation. Draco doesn’t stop, hardly notices, and Harry feels panic rising up again. He whirls around, snatches Draco’s wrist as his other hand closes on the door knob.

Draco’s eyes rise up to meet him, painfully slow.

Harry always knows when he’s on dangerous ground with Draco; his eyes cloud over and freeze, so cold that he shivers to look at them, but threatening a storm. Harry knows; he can’t afford to make a mistake now.

He grasps Draco by the back of his neck, whirls him around, and throws him with as much force as he can muster onto the bed. He stalks toward Draco, taking in his shock wide eyes and otherwise impassive face.

Draco’s seen Harry prowl in any number of ways. Whether it was to tackle him in school, toward an enemy during the war, or with gleaming intent in his eyes as he takes in Draco’s body, Harry can never manage to incite fear in his pale eyes or his harsh mouth. Sometimes he wishes he could. But he knows as he eyes the taut line of Draco’s back, his leg slowly drawing up, the challenging tilt of his chin; he made the right move.

“I love you,” he growls into Draco’s mouth. He feels Draco’s lips twist; he knows the shape of that knife-sharp smile against his own as well as he knows its appearance. He’s always surprised that it doesn’t cut him.

“How much?” Draco hisses back, his voice still wicked with anger and dissatisfaction, blurring the lines between hatred and passion.

Harry flips him over. He doesn’t answer.

After, they lay side by side, Harry’s arm curling around Draco’s waist, his fingers dancing over sharp bone and soft skin.

“How much?” Draco whispers again, unprompted but gentler, calming, as if his tone now could replace the cruelty of before. But Harry knows better; Harry knows they couldn’t exist without cruelty. Harry knows that Draco wouldn’t take it back if he could.

“As much as the entire ocean,” he breathes into Draco’s ear, his face nestled in the curve of his neck. “As vast as deserts stretching on for miles…”

***

“You know, I can’t say I ever thought I’d be sharing my scotch with Harry Potter,” Malfoy says thoughtfully. They’ve been sitting in silence for some time, each lost in their own thoughts. Harry slides a glance over to him.

“Is that an insult?” he counters.

“Potter.” It’s remarkable how much derision Malfoy can put in just two syllables. Harry’s slightly offended that his own name has been made to sound like a painful affliction. “Everything I will ever say to you will be an insult. I know it takes you a while to pick up on things, but I have known you long enough and I have insulted you enough times that I really thought you would have learned that by now.”

Harry’s careful to hide the quirk of his mouth with his glass, and straighten his face before replying, “My apologies, it’s quite hard to tell when you’re trying to be insulting, seeing as how you’ve never quite gotten the hang of it.”

“I will have you know that I came up with some truly brilliant material during school,” Malfoy replies haughtily. “You ought to know; most of it was directed at you and your kind.” Harry falters for a moment at the reference to his friends, but he’s grown more accustomed to ignoring Malfoy’s slips and slights; there’s rarely ever any conviction behind them.

“Oh, d’you mean like when you told me that I had no mum? Or the time you so graciously informed me that my dad was dead?” Harry asks casually. “You know, I’m not sure stating facts about my parents counts as an insult. The way you said it, you’d think I didn’t already know.”

“Not that you can talk. The best you ever came up with was telling Longbottom that he was – what was it? – worth _twelve_ of me?” Malfoy scoffs. “And you had to inform me of this grievous miscalculation through the idiot himself.” Behind the mockery and sarcasm in his voice, Harry can hear a certain edge.

“What, still smarting from that one?” He affects his best derisive drawl, and having spent years picking up the tone (as well as any number of obscene gestures and pureblood swearwords) from the man across from him, it’s passable. “Really, if I didn’t know better I’d think you were still eleven years old. I know my words – which were obviously accurate – cut deep, but you’ve got to let go of old wounds.”

“Yes, well, I think the war proved who was worth more in the end,” Malfoy mutters.

They both fall silent.

***

They lie in silence, for once. Harry lies with his arm around Draco, and Draco leans comfortably against Harry’s chest. Smiles play over both of their faces, and sunlight dances over their limbs, nearly as pleasant as the warmth they gain from one another. Harry’s eyes drift shut. He turns his face toward Draco, the light bouncing off his pale hair casting a glow behind Harry’s eyelids. Harry buries his face in that hair, breathing it in as he presses a kiss to the top of Draco’s head.

_Knock, knock, knock_.

The sound echoes throughout the room. Harry closes his eyes more tightly.

_Knock, knock._

Draco jerks away from Harry. When Harry looks, he sees Draco staring at him wide-eyed.

_Knock_.

“I love you,” Harry whispers, as if the force of his voice and not the volume would drown out the knocking against the far wall.

Draco says nothing.

The question is in his eyes.

“As much as the entire ocean.” Harry hears the tremble in his voice. “As vast as deserts stretching on for miles, as bountiful as rolling hills, as lively as fields of those little yellow flowers you love.” He struggles to keep his voice from cracking. Every time he pauses, his ears are filled with knocking, and roaring silence behind it. “As tall as mountains, as wide as the endless cosmos, as true as an arrow flying toward the perfect center. As strong as earthquakes. As devastating as bombs.” The words tear themselves out of his throat, breaking in the middle. “As aching as war wounds.”

Draco stares at him. Silent. The knocking continues.

Draco surges forward, kissing him fiercely as a sob tears from Harry’s lips. Draco swallows the noise, and finally, _finally_ , the knocking fades in Harry’s ears.

***

“I found her in the basement. The dungeon, really. Hermione and Arthur – they were the only others on the mission who survived – were dealing with the Death Eaters on the upper floors. I went downstairs to see if there were any survivors. I -” Harry swallows. The image of bodies floats behind his eyes. “Most of the prisoners were dead. A lot of them were Hogwarts students; current Hogwarts students, years younger than us, not nearly old enough to fight in the war. A few were older, but they were long dead, bodies that had been left to rot and to scare the new captives.” He shakes his head. “I couldn’t spare time for the dead. I didn’t even look at who they were, to report back to their families. We knew Voldemort was coming, and the first lesson I ever learned was that the living come before the dead. But the living – there was only one person there who was breathing. There were a few who had been left with the Mergis Curse, but we’d already learned we couldn’t do anything for them. It took us months to even figure out how to put them out of their misery, the Killing Curse didn’t work.” He shakes his head again, a pained jerk of the neck. “We never did figure out how that curse worked, even when we realized how we could mercy kill them. Such a long war, and we never knew so many of our enemies’ secrets.”

“All it had to do was maintain,” Malfoy cuts in quietly. “It held the brain of its victim in stasis, of a sort. If no energy could be released, it didn’t matter that none was being created. Their brain held onto thoughts, to life, for as long as the curse held. That was Millicent’s brainchild.” He pauses, as if unsure of his next comment, or perhaps the use of his old classmate’s first name. “She liked the idea of the thoughts the victims had at the moment the curse was cast being stuck with them, forever.”

Harry nods, his eyes distant. “We could only kill them with a Blasting Curse to the head. It was a long time before we tried that; no one wanted to suggest it.” He closes his eyes for a moment, his mind centering on the memory. “I shot Blasting Curses at any open eyes I saw. I almost shot one at her, but I heard her breathing a moment before I let the curse fly.” A pause. “I wonder if it would have been better if I hadn’t realized. But I did, and I stopped myself. Stopped long enough to get a good look at her. She was lying there, staring up at me. She looked as if she hadn’t slept for weeks, and there was slime covering her whole body. She started laughing when she saw me. It was – they’d turned her feral, almost. But the sight of me seemed to bring her back to herself, and it finally snapped her. She was babbling, even while she was laughing. And she wouldn’t stop clutching her stomach. I think they’d convinced her that she was pregnant. Or maybe she really was. I don’t know what they did to her.” He shudders, and squeezes his eyes shut again before he continues.

“I remember the last time I saw her before that. We’d slept together the night before, for the first time.” His eyes open a moment later, just in time to catch the tail end of a shadow crossing Malfoy’s face. He wonders if he imagined it. “That morning was the attack on Grimmauld Place. She tried to comfort me. But – the last thing I wanted after seeing McGonagall ripped apart like that was some romance. She never seemed to understand that the war was more than just a distraction from our relationship. So the last thing I did when I saw her was shove her away from me. She disappeared that afternoon. I might have imagined it, but I thought I recognized the betrayal in her eyes when I found her months later. I saw it, and I couldn’t move. She just looked so shattered. I knew, somewhere, that I had to kill her, that she was dying already and trying to save her would only hurt her more. But I couldn’t do it. Arthur came down the stairs while I was still frozen. He only hesitated for a moment before he cast the Killing Curse and pulled me out of the room.” Another shudder. “Her own father, Malfoy. Her own father had to kill her because I was too weak.”

“He took his life a week after that raid,” Malfoy says softly, his tone not posing a question.

“Yes. He did.” Harry meets Malfoy’s eyes fiercely, and Malfoy doesn’t flinch at the guilt written there. The flash of a hand passes the corner of Harry’s eye, and for a confused moment he expects it to rest on his shoulder.

Malfoy’s hand comes into view holding the half full bottle of scotch. “Refill, Potter?” he asks coolly. Harry holds up his glass.

“Blaise tried to modify the Mergis Curse once Millicent was killed,” Malfoy says conversationally as he pours. “He told me that he thought it was too cruel, but in the end, the curse he presented to the Dark Lord was far worse. I was exposed before he finished it, but I recognized his handiwork, as well as Millicent’s, when I saw the victims on our side. He managed to spread it through the victim’s entire body. The day I saw that curse’s effects was the day I killed him. I never saw it repeated; as far as I can tell, that was only the test run, and he hadn’t taught the others the curse before he was dead. Killing him was the one thing I did during the war that I never questioned.”

Harry eyes him carefully. Malfoy glances up from his scotch and meets Harry’s eyes with a twisted mouth, a familiar expression that makes Harry’s heart pound.

“I don’t suppose the Boy Who Lived ever doubted a single move,” Malfoy taunts.

“It’s easy, when you’re fighting for the right side from the beginning,” Harry responds without hesitation.

“The winning side, perhaps. I don’t believe either of us can make a reasonable argument for ethics, Potter.”

Harry grins in response, a grin he knows is fierce and ugly. Malfoy’s eyes are bright.

A tapping at the window makes them both jump. Malfoy rises to let it in, and the owl flies straight to Harry and holds out its leg.

After a surprised moment, Malfoy chuckles, a low and curling laugh that drives a spike through Harry’s stomach. Harry glances at him curiously. “Owls can’t feel through the wards. Whoever sent this knew that you could be found here.” Harry smiles wryly. He unties the letter from the owl. Malfoy continues to chatter amusedly, but Harry doesn’t pay attention as he unfolds the letter.

The room freezes.

For a moment of sheer confused panic, both men stare at the small object that rolled out of the letter, and the swirling magic that rises out of it. Then instinct and muscle memory and years upon years of training followed by years upon years of battle kick in and both draw their wands, settling back simultaneously into familiar synchronized battle positions without so much as a glance at one another. They each have a curse on their lips as the Death Eaters appear, swept into the room with a Portkey that Harry knows shouldn’t have gotten through the wards.

The first wave of Death Eaters is hit by a curse from Harry and a curse from Malfoy, a combination that they calculated years ago for maximum efficiency and maximum power, made to blast through shields that the enemies, in this case, haven’t bothered to raise. As a second set of cloaked figures appears, Harry incapacitates one with a Freezing Charm to the heart and Malfoy slices one open from the forehead down; Harry hears Malfoy laughing delightedly and realizes a moment later that he’s joined in.

“Just like old times!” Malfoy shouts from beside him, glee making his voice clearer than Harry’s heard it for years.

“Yeah, you’re the same thorn in my side that I’m forced to fight with,” Harry retorts, and he isn’t surprised to hear the same joy he sees in Malfoy’s face reflected in his own tone.  Another group of Death Eaters whirl from the Portkey, and Harry takes advantage of the shield that Malfoy raises in front of them both to prepare a longer hex for the intruders.

“Be glad I’m no longer fighting against you.” Malfoy drops the shield abruptly just in time for Harry to let loose his hex, and turns with a Severing Charm to cut open the man Harry’s hex missed. As if to prove Harry’s luck in having him as a comrade and not an enemy, Malfoy lets the charm whip across Harry’s arm, leaving a shallow gash. He howls with laughter at the mock outrage in Harry’s face, and the gleam in his eyes has Harry catching his breath.

As Harry learned in his first battle when he took the time to mourn Seamus and wound up with Cho Chang bleeding in his arms after taking a curse for him, a momentary distraction is the most dangerous advantage a soldier can offer his enemy. He gasps with pain as a modified Stinging Hex hits his shoulder. Before he can spin around to take down his attacker, Malfoy’s grey eyes glint with steel and a Blasting Curse hits the man behind him. It takes Harry a moment to realize that the blood spattering his back is mingling with blood already present, blood that was his own. So the Stinging Hex was made to leave a wound, then. He doesn’t have time to consider it, though, as another five Death Eaters step out of the connection the Portkey opened.

“I need you to take them,” he hisses to Malfoy.

“What, so you can dash in like a true Gryffindor without a plan?” Malfoy replies, even as he takes down one with a Tripping Jinx and a chair Transfigured into a spike for him to fall on. He spends a moment blocking another’s curses before Summoning a heavy book from behind the man to slam into the back of his head, knocking him unconscious and perhaps even killing him.

“Just trust me!” Harry urges, though he sees that Malfoy is already moving away from him, backing into a corner with a flare of light meant to draw the three remaining enemies to follow him. In the moment of opportunity afforded him, Harry dodges around the body of a fallen Death Eater, casting a Disillusionment Charm on himself as he moves. It’s not particularly effective in battle, as he’s visible enough to anyone looking carefully, but if the enemies are distracted by Malfoy he’s sure it will do.

He sees a moment later, however, that only two of the men were in fact drawn toward Malfoy. The other is standing near the Portkey, apparently Summoning something toward himself from the opposite end of the room. Without thinking, Harry calls a Shield Charm between the man and his target, twists it into the man, who is too confused by the sudden failure of his Summoning Charm to see it coming and is knocked to the ground, and draws the shield to settle around the Portkey, effectively closing off the connection. It will have to do until they can disable the Portkey, he thinks as he flicks a Heart Attack Curse at the man he just felled.

He turns to face Malfoy with a smile quirking his lips, and watches as his comrade dispatches both of his enemies at once with a powerful Fire Curse that chars them both in moments and dissipates before it can burn the carpet. As the ashes fall to the ground, Malfoy meets his eyes with fire and silver in his glance and the exaltation in Harry’s chest turns liquid.

“Well fought,” Malfoy mutters, his lips barely moving. He inclines his head in a motion so small that someone who did not know him as well as Harry did wouldn’t recognize it. Harry remembers a time when Malfoy made the same gesture with the same words, following the first time they fought against each other in battle. At the time, he’d felt nothing but his skin burning with the anger and grief at losing Neville. He knows better now; knows the rules of war, knows Malfoy.

He waits, and Malfoy raises his head again, letting Harry see his shining eyes and the contained feral joy in his face, the hard lines and the slightest upward curl at the corners of his mouth. Harry can almost hear the words in the silence, informing him that his manners are appalling and a gesture of respect demands a response.

Harry grins fiercely at him, ignoring all decorum and letting the fire of his pounding blood shine through his face, pure adrenaline and joy and the thrum of the fight in his ears, in his element in a way he hasn’t been since the war ended.

He pretends to not hear Malfoy’s small breath, instead admiring the same emotions he feels whirling through him reflected in Malfoy’s eyes, and for a moment in the wrecked room filled with blood and the destroyed bodies of the Death Eater invaders, nothing exists outside the two of them.

***

They sit in silence.

It accosts Harry’s ears, pervades his mind to smother desperately churning thoughts. It binds him to his seat, tugs his mouth into a scowl, draws his eyes again and again to Draco’s face even as he forces them away. It twists into his heart, echoes in his chest, fills him with its rage and its stillness. He hates it. Hates the oppressive air that slaughters any word before it can begin, hates Draco’s childish sulking, hates his own petty stubbornness that doesn’t allow him to concede before Draco does. He hates the anger and dissatisfaction and self-loathing and contempt that fester even when they scream at each other, until their fights dissolve into an uncrossable barrier of silence.

Sometimes, Harry wishes that Draco would give up his petulance, that he would be courageous enough to drag their issues into the open kicking and screaming. But then again, they fight all too often, and many of those fights involve kicking and screaming of a more literal variety. They never seem to stop fighting.

Sometimes, Harry thinks one or both of them was meant to die during the war.

Knocking drums from beyond the door. It shatters the silence in such a way that, to Harry’s despair, only seems to reinforce it. Harry hopes it will stop after only a few moments, the way it so often does, but it shouts at them in no recognizable pattern, sets of drummed beats followed by excruciating silence.

Harry and Draco glare at one another, faces full of tight lines that do nothing to soften them, eyes blazing emotions.

The knocking persists.

***

Harry is nervous. He can admit it, even as much as he hates the fact, scorns himself for letting Malfoy affect him so much. He sees no point in denying the truth, and the truth is that he’s nervous, and justifiably so. Not only was he faced with the continued existence of Death Eaters in his last visit to Malfoy Manor, but the attack left Malfoy with no place to stay while he worked to strengthen the wards on his home. Malfoy, with pride that Harry has always found ridiculous, refused to ask for help, instead staying in the manor for three nights after the attack, during which time three hexed letters, another Portkey, and the wand of an old comrade, now dead, got through holes in his wards that he is so far unable to find. Harry, checking in to see if he was having luck with the wards, managed to drag the truth out of him, and immediately insisted that Malfoy come stay with him upon hearing about the wand, which was charmed to fire off the Killing Curse at random intervals.

Now, his house is clean after two hours of frantically casting household spells, and Harry sits in an armchair by the fireplace, trying to stop staring at the glowing of the fire. He glances around the room, hoping he managed to make it presentable enough. His house is nowhere near the standard of Malfoy Manor, but he’s stocked the liquor cabinet and hopes that Malfoy’s embarrassment at needing help will keep him from mocking what’s been offered. He knows he can’t count on any amount of charming hominess winning Malfoy over.

But there he’s caught again, lying to himself. _It won’t do any good_ , he thinks, the mantra familiar from the analysis of his every action that he forced himself into during the war. He learned then that nothing but total honesty with himself would get him through battles intact, and that he couldn’t afford to ignore the uglier parts of his soul. _That last is still true_ , he reminds himself.

Harry knows himself better than to think that the threat of Death Eaters and the threat of Malfoy’s disapproval, both challenges that get his blood moving, challenges that he’s itching to face, are the sources of his anxiety. He knows there’s something else, niggling at his conscience, prompting the staccato of his heart and the trouble he’s having in looking away from the fire that Malfoy ought to come through at any moment. He squares his shoulders and grits his teeth, at least mentally, and forces himself to face the truth.

When he closes his eyes, the image that appears is that of Malfoy’s face, eyes bright and expression hard, on the edge of feral. Harry hasn’t been able to stop seeing the expression Malfoy wore when they fought together for three days.

At that moment, the ward on his fireplace rings out, and Harry opens his eyes to see the Floo flaring into life. He shakes his head to collect himself, and stands to greet Malfoy, who steps through the fire a moment later and leans down to brush the dust off of his robes. Harry suppresses a chuckle at the flecks of ash that remain in Malfoy’s hair.

“You would think,” Malfoy drawls with an expression of distaste, “some wizard somewhere would have thought to invent a method of travel that does not involve soiling my robes.”

“Malfoy.” Harry steps up to the challenge gratefully. “How nice to see you can visit my home without complaining.”

Malfoy’s lips quirk. “Why, Potter, I must have something to entertain myself in this slum. Really, I know you tend to occupy yourself by brooding day in and day out and therefore do not feel the need for the bare necessities of home and comfort, but how you can stand to live somewhere without a garden, I will never understand.”

Harry rolls his eyes, but steps forward to take Malfoy’s hand anyway. He bows his head solemnly, the old pureblood tradition for accepting an esteemed guest into one’s home. He can’t quite resist the temptation to ghost his breath over Malfoy’s fingers, not quite the kiss that would declare the guest submissive, but a deviation from the stiff ritual that would signal only respect. It’s the only concession he makes in the formal gesture, and he hopes Malfoy will recognize what he means by it, the simultaneous taunt that accompanies the variation from tradition and the careful admission of the nature of their relationship. When he straightens, he sees a flash of something like delight in Malfoy’s eyes that disappears a moment later.

“Greetings, traveler,” he murmurs. “Please accept my humble offer of lodging, and may your wandering cease if your stay satisfies.” Normally, Harry finds the words distasteful, promising either a permanent stay or the end of continued travel by another means, of the sort that satisfies only violence and pride. However, in the complex relationship they’ve developed, Harry feels nothing is more appropriate than the combination of veiled threat, open insult, and unmitigated promise. _May your wandering cease_.

Malfoy seems to agree, as he inclines his head in return, his face as alive as in the memory that’s been dancing behind Harry’s eyes for days. “A blessing on your house for saving a weary traveler. I accept your offer, and promise you that my visit will find contentment for us both.”

Harry breathes a sigh of relief at the words Malfoy chose; an apparent attempt at peacemaking. Formalities finished, Harry begins to draw his hand away, only to find that Malfoy’s grip has tightened. A challenge in his gaze, Malfoy pulls Harry’s hand close, bows his head, and presses a kiss to Harry’s knuckles. Harry stares at him in confusion, trying to ignore the shiver running down his spine.

Without saying anything more, Malfoy sweeps past him into the sitting room, looking around him as he walks. Harry shakes his head, confounded by the way that Malfoy always seems to switch so abruptly between the composed, passionate man that Harry fought beside in the war, and the spoiled pureblood brat he went to school with.

As he trails helplessly after his guest, Harry finds that his nervousness has evaporated, replaced by a warm knot in his chest that he can’t quite untangle.

***

Harry always enjoys this part.

He crouches over Draco, arms and legs positioned to avoid touching so much as an inch of the body splayed beneath him, even as his nerves scream out for contact. He breathes warm air over Draco’s pale skin, enjoying the widening of his grey eyes as he watches Harry. He lifts a hand to brush against Draco’s side, soft so as to tantalize as Draco so often does to him. He lets his lips ghost over Draco’s stomach, close enough to be felt if not actually pressing against skin. He slides his knee slowly along Draco’s thigh, stopping before he goes too high.

Draco shivers, then lets out a growl. Harry grins as arms come around him, drag him down into a fierce kiss, flip him over as Draco presses against him. Harry gasps, breathless, as Draco practically pounces on him, attacks him with the same ferocity he displays in any desperate situation.

Harry loves making Draco lose control.

A single pitiful knock sounds from the wall by the door. Harry hardly notices.

***

Harry wakes with a gasp and jolts upright, shivers running through him.

_Wind in his face. A green bolt rushing past him, stinging his cheek. A falling body. Bushy hair trailing behind, trying to resist gravity. A scream caught by the wind, flurried away._

A dream. It was only a dream.

_A roar to his right. A figure leaping from his broom. Entwined bodies falling, a life sacrificed to a primal attack. Seamus’s voice echoes._

Harry rubs a hand over his brow as his breathing slows. He sits still for a moment, surrounded by darkness, and listens carefully for misplaced noises in the house. He stiffens, drawn to alert, when he hears an unfamiliar noise, before he realizes the sound isn’t entirely new to him; he recalls a mission, once, where he was stuck in a tent with Malfoy for a week. He remembers lying awake each night, hating the soft snores coming from the other cot just as he hated everything to do with Malfoy. He never expected to hear those same noises drifting into his room from the bedroom across the hall.

He treads down the hall carefully, drawing his robe around himself and determinedly not pondering the warmth spreading out from his chest. When he reaches the study at the end of the hall, he pulls a full flask out of the liquor cabinet and settles into a chair facing the window. The first time he saw the house, back when he was searching with Ron and Seamus, he thought it was far too stuffy. The rooms were too crowded for his taste; he’s always hated cramped quarters. But when he saw the view from this window, a glimpse of the ocean just visible above the trees, he knew he would be happy in the house. Though happiness may not be the best descriptor for his time since the war, Harry knows that there is no place he would rather be than this house. He hadn’t expected to be living in it alone when he bought it, but at first he had occasional visits from Luna to help it seems less lonely, and after she went missing he was used to the quiet, enough so that he didn’t mind. Now he even finds it comforting.

If only he could sleep through the night.

“Potter?” Malfoy’s sleepy mumble behind him jerks Harry out of his reverie. He shakes his head; he really must be tired if he didn’t hear Malfoy’s footsteps in the hall.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” Harry grimaces to find his voice come out hoarse. Malfoy eyes him for a moment, gaze sharper than it should be since he sounded half awake, before giving an almost imperceptible nod. Before Harry can think about what that means, Malfoy walks to his liquor cabinet, fixes himself a drink, and sits in the chair beside Harry’s.

The sun rises a few hours later, casting an orange glow over them, making the sharp lines of Malfoy’s face look almost gentle. They watch in silence, breathing in sync after sitting for so long.

***

Draco draws circles over Harry’s back with his fingers, a gentle soothing motion that both calms Harry and sets his blood on fire. He’s never been more at ease than in these moments, resting with his head against Draco’s shoulder. He feels certain that it’s possible for everything to be fine if he just stays right here, forever.

The erratic banging on the wall begins again, softer this time but still pervading the room relentlessly.

“Something’s coming for us,” Draco states quietly, without a trace of doubt in his voice.

Harry nuzzles his face into Draco’s neck, and his lover’s arms come around him, a promise to keep him safe.

***

Harry fixes them dinner the next night. He’s rather proud of his cooking, a skill he picked up in the first few years after the war at one of his Mediwizards’ insistence. Since then, he’s rarely gotten the chance to make a meal for anyone other than himself and occasionally Dean or Molly and Charlie, all of whom talk to him with the same delicate care in their voices and who he knows would never risk injuring his feelings.

When he sets Malfoy’s plate in front of him, Malfoy takes a crisp, elegant bite, his table manners as impeccable as if he were at one of his mother’s parties, rather than at the shoddy round table that Harry found at a Muggle neighbor’s yard sale years earlier. He chews slowly. “I cannot believe you can cook,” he tells Harry emphatically, his expression considering.

Harry clamps down on the grin that wants to spread over his face.

“Really,” Malfoy goes on, “I would never have expected Harry Potter, the Chosen Boy Who Defeated the Dark Lord or whatever they’re calling you these days, to take up cooking. To tell the truth, back in school, I thought you would save the world then go on to live in the lap of luxury, with servants to cook for you. Not even house elves! Actual wizard servants to do your bidding. Well, that or you would die at the Dark Lord’s hand. Then the servants would be mine.” He looks around for a moment in silence, grey eyes piercing in the dim light. “Funny how things turn out,” he says softly.

They eat quietly for a time before Malfoy speaks again, still in that odd quiet voice without his usual cruel edge. “Pansy used to cook for me,” he says. “She would show up at the manor, in the days before they found her, and cook up a storm in my kitchen. Entirely uninvited, and she made a mess every time. She would say that my stove was nicer than hers, and that I never used it anyway. It was – she was never a very good cook. She always handed me a plate of some unrecognizable slop and when I made a face, she told me it was _exotic_ , just eat it.” Harry chuckles and sees the ghost of a laugh cross Malfoy’s face before he looks down. “I liked the noise she made. All the clanging and cursing, and the mess I would have to spend the entire next day cleaning up. It felt like…something I’d once counted on, finally happening.” He looks around the dim room thoughtfully. “I don’t see how you can bear to live in a place like this. The manor at least is large; it always feels possible that someone is in the next room over, and the silence is only isolated to wherever I am. But here...doesn’t it get lonely at night?”

Harry glances up at him, surprised at the earnest tone of his voice. “I like the quiet,” he responds after a pause. He doesn’t explain the feeling he gets sometimes that the ghosts of his friends are dancing just beyond his reach. He doesn’t confess that sometimes he hates them, hates that he can’t reach out and touch them, can’t pull them close and keep them for his own or join them in that world just outside of his dreams. He doesn’t admit that sometimes he thinks they’ve come to see the sunrise with him. “It feels safe.”

***

_As lively as fields of those little yellow flowers you love._

_As devastating as bombs._

***

“You know,” Harry muses lazily the next afternoon, lying in the garden at Malfoy Manor, “it seems like there are an awful lot of holes in your wards, and you’re not exactly doing a particularly thorough job of finding them-”

Malfoy turns to glare at him. “While you are sun tanning, I’ll have you know, I am physically and magically feeling every inch of the wards on _my_ manor with _precision_ and _care_ and _focus_ -”

“Regardless,” Harry interrupts, “there’s no way you can be certain you’ve got all of them, and I don’t think it would be a particularly good idea for you to come back if there’s a chance that a curse could get through…”

“Potter,” Malfoy remarks after a pause. “Are you implying that I move in with you?”

Harry looks away, hoping Malfoy doesn’t notice his face flushing. “Of course not, you twit. I just wouldn’t want someone doing what I failed to do in the war; if I couldn’t kill you, I don’t want some thick Death Eaters doing it.”

“I see, the fate of my life reduced to a petty competition,” Malfoy drawls, turning his focus back to his wards. “But I think,” he murmurs over his shoulder, his voice cool and quiet with a just a hint of a growl that sends shivers up Harry’s spine, “you wouldn’t mind if I did move in. I think you like having me in the next room over, close enough that you can hear my breath when you’re alone in your bed at night…”

“Malfoy,” Harry warns, his voice sharp with intent. He isn’t entirely certain what it is he intends; he doesn’t really know that he cares.

Malfoy bows his head at Harry’s scolding, surprised as ever to be remonstrated for his cruelty. “What do you expect from me, Potter?” he asks without raising his head, voice flat.

Harry hesitates for a long moment, the question ringing in his head. It’s a question he’s asked himself relentlessly for months, and continuously turned away from. He glances briefly at Malfoy, hoping perhaps if he doesn’t receive an answer he’ll return to his work. Malfoy remains frozen, staring at a point on the ground just beyond his own shoulder. Harry stares at Malfoy’s shoulder.

“You’re all I have left.”

Malfoy doesn’t move. He stays still for long enough that Harry carefully raises his eyes, and is met with the sight of Malfoy’s set jaw.

The silence stretches between them, taut and undeniable. Malfoy returns to his work with a quiet diligence. After a time, Harry lies back, raising his arm to shield his face from the heat.

***

“Do you remember,” Draco begins abruptly, “that fight we had in fourth year, about the Nifflers?”

Harry grins languorously. “What, you mean the time when you ran off crying to Pansy?”

Draco glares at him. “I will have you know that moments too late to use it, I thought up an absolutely _brilliant_ retort.”

“Oh, I’m sure you did. Something about my dead parents, no doubt,” Harry replies casually.

“Actually, I think it was something along the lines of comparing you to a Niffler, only one that digs up shit instead of gold. Oh, it was brilliant. You would have been torn to pieces. I even had a routine all planned out; Harry Potter, the Chosen Niffler. The Boy Who Dug Up Shit. I tried to do the impersonation for Pansy, but she said it would only have been funny if I’d said it earlier, instead of being, and these are her words mind you, ‘trumped like the Chudley Cannons playing on toy brooms.’”

Harry chuckles. “Yeah, but you didn’t.”

“Oh, I know. I beat myself up over it for months afterwards,” Draco says ruefully. “I always seemed to have regrets after I talked to you,” he adds quietly.

Harry looks at him carefully. “I love you,” he murmurs.

Draco looks down. “Mother used to take me on walks up to the cliffs near the manor at night,” he says thoughtfully, voice hard. “She would always tell me legends of the moon and the tide, caught in an eternal battle so devastating as to move mountains, an endless drilling torrent of back and forth. And neither could ever win, neither could draw the other so far as to change the pattern of things; a war so willed by nature, so undeniable it becomes a dance, push and pull, lead and follow. For all eternity.”

“I love you,” Harry says again, a plead disguised as a demand. His eyelids flutter closed, blocking the sight of Draco’s tense frame and downturned face. “Damn you,” he growls.

A moment later, he feels the soft weight of arms come around him, a head against his shoulder, fine hair fanning in his face. “Damn you,” he whispers again, voice splitting.

***

The next morning, Harry sneaks down the hall early and slips into the kitchen, careful not to wake Malfoy. By the time Malfoy comes down the stairs, Harry is in the midst of preparing omelettes for them both.

“What’s this?” Malfoy asks brightly, looking surprised. “Usually we just have scotch for breakfast.”

“I thought,” Harry begins hopefully. “I wanted to do something nice after yesterday.”

Malfoy looks at him intently, with a curious quirk to his mouth that unsettles Harry. “What happened yesterday? And wow, this smells delicious; it was tempting me even when I was upstairs. I was drawn to it from my room. Speaking of, I’ll be getting back up now; will you come fetch me when breakfast is ready?”

With that he turns and walks up the stairs, leaving Harry to stare after him perplexedly.

When he finishes the food, Harry walks up into Malfoy’s room, his legs stiff. When he reaches the doorway he stops in shock.

“What are you doing?” he asks blankly.

“Packing,” Malfoy replies gruffly as he shoves several shirts into a bag.

Harry stares at him. “Why are you packing? It didn’t look like you were done with the wards. Is this about what happened yesterday?”

Malfoy looks at him with the same intensity as before, eyes a stormy grey. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t – Why are you leaving?” Harry demands.

“I only have a few hours of work left before my home is safe again,” Malfoy replies curtly.

“Don’t – don’t go.” Harry fights to keep from sounding desperate.

Malfoy looks at him for a long moment, a searching gaze that makes Harry’s skin itch. “The wards are finished.”

Harry stands uncertainly against the doorway for a moment, staring down at his own hands. “Let me,” he mutters, “let me help you pack. At least that.” He edges over to where Malfoy is standing, and is gratified when Malfoy moves over to allow him access. “You’re shite at packing anyway, you need my help,” he taunts casually, watching pale slender fingers fumbling with folded clothes.

***

_As tall as mountains._

_As wide as the endless cosmos._

***

They walk to the manor without speaking, each man keeping his eyes locked on the earth. Harry sometimes glumly glances at the figure to his right side, but some age-old instinct keeps his gaze for the most part glued to the ground beneath his own feet; it warns him that he ought to take care not to risk that he might peer in the oblivion of a different soul. Wind whips against his face, searing his skin and bringing tears to his eyes that he fights to stop.

Leaves whisper with each step that Harry takes, an insistent murmur, incongruous in the shimmer of chill air and silence. _Slow down_ , they say, _slow down, slow down_. Their muffled rustle sears itself into Harry’s focus, a curious familiarity drawing his heartbeat to a steady pound. _Something’s coming_.

Malfoy’s eyes are fixed straight ahead, unflinching from the piercing cold. The air prickles against Harry’s skin with an eerie viscosity.

A sudden flash of light appears before them, charging the air with electricity. Harry looks up to see black cloaks waving in the wind, white masks over mouths cruel with determination.

***

Harry nestles his head into Draco’s shoulder, feeling relaxed and terribly safe. “Your shoulders are so bony,” he murmurs sleepily.

“You don’t have to sleep on them, you know,” comes the affectionate response, Draco’s voice fraught with amusement and a certain buzz of the same sort that Harry can feel running through the whipcord muscles of the pale man he lays with.

“Nah, it’s a nice sort of bony.” He snuggles closer as Draco’s arm comes around him, warm and close for this endless moment.

“Well I’m glad I can provide you some comfort while you slowly cut off all circulation to my arm.” Harry can hear the smile in his companion’s voice, tender and dear. He smiles in response, angling his face up to meet Draco’s eyes.

Knocking pierces the room, shattering the peaceful quiet. Voices ring out beneath it, frantic and so hopeful they make Harry want to run.

_“This one has to work, please let it work,”_ they whisper, torn apart by desperation.

Harry does not recognize them; they do not belong to the man beside him.

_“Please, Harry, come back to us. We need you.”_

***

A white light flashes, unfamiliar; a sharp pain hits Harry’s chest, he falls to his knees. A roar he knows so intimately calls out beside him; he struggles to get to his feet.

Harry cries out as his head splits with pain; bursts of light color his vision; he opens his eyes to the ground beneath him, the yells from above muffled in his ears. Another flash of lightning; a scream that shatters Harry; a thud beside him. Red, pouring out over the ground that fills his field of vision.

***

“You’re lying! Stop lying to me!” Draco howls, his voice tearing at Harry’s chest. “You’ve never known me, not at all, you’ve never had anything other than this sick obsession with me!”

“Oh don’t be ridiculous!” Harry shouts back, hating his temper but unable to stop, unable to hold back whenever he’s faced with Draco, still the same as he always was. “I’ve always seen right through you, and you were never anything but a coward! I fought beside you for years, and the only thing I knew for certain was that you would never be anything but a coward!”

“A coward!” Draco cries in outrage. “I’ve had more courage than you idiotic Gryffindors could ever dream of, and I have enough courage now to do what I need to. I refuse to spend the rest of my life trapped here!”

Harry glares at him, aware that words are coming out of his mouth that he can’t control, a roaring in his ears. “Why does it matter where you spend your life? You should’ve died during the war!” he hears himself bellow.

The air freezes. Harry stares at Draco, his throat soar and caught. He reaches out desperately. Numb hand meets bony wrist and Harry draws him close, holding him in trembling arms.

“I didn’t mean it,” he chokes, voice splintering in all directions. “I didn’t mean any of it, please don’t leave me, please Draco, please darling, please, please, please.”

Knocking rings out from the wall beyond, a beat to set Harry’s shattering.

“Please, Draco, I love you, please, _please_.”

Cold grey eyes, staring straight ahead. Insistent banging on the far wall.

***

Harry wakes with a gasp.

“Oh, thank Merlin. Molly, come quick! It worked, he’s awake; Molly, he’s awake!”

Hurried footsteps. “Oh Harry, dear, you’re back, I can’t believe you’re back, I was so scared, oh Harry dear, oh, thank Merlin, oh my -” Arms tug him forward. Fabric stifles his breath.

“Harry, mate, it’s about time you woke up, we’ve been terrified here.” A voice trembling on the edge of delight. A hand pounds his back. Water drips onto his head, trickling down from the face above.

Harry opens his eyes slowly.

Red fills his vision, so vibrant he jerks backwards out of Molly’s arms. He looks up at her tear-stained face. He stares at her for a moment, utterly lost.

“Mrs. Weasley?” he croaks.

“I’ve told you, call me Molly,” she corrects with a watery smile. “Oh Harry, dear, we’ve been so worried, you’ve been unconscious for months, I hardly knew what to do with myself. Oh dear, I’m so glad you’ve woken up, I was so afraid I’d lost you as well, oh I’ve got to go Floo Charlie, you only missed him by a few days, he’ll be so relieved to hear you’re alright, oh, I haven’t -” she hurries out of the room, tears still falling from her face.

Dean steps forward as she leaves, face stretched in the gentle smile that Harry knows so well from nights in the war. He remembers the words of comfort that used to accompany it, alone in a tent for nights on end. Even after Seamus’s death, that simple smile was never forced.

“What happened?” Harry asks him. “Where am I?”

Dean hesitates. “You’re in St. Mungo’s. You’ve been in a coma for months, Harry. You were attacked by some Death Eaters. Don’t worry, the first thing we did was round them all up. I don’t know how they got away in the war, d’you know Corner was one of them? I could’ve sworn he died in the battle at Cantry, Seamus would be devastated if he knew his curse missed, he never stopped bragging about that one.” He shakes his head. “Anyway…we’ve been trying everything to wake you up. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong with you, so they’ve been casting different spells and giving you potions to bring you back to consciousness. Molly hasn’t left your side for more than a day at a time, but she’d really started to lose hope. It was hard not to. I’m just – I’m so glad you’re back, Harry. No one else is really quite the same; no one else was there by my side, all the way through. I’m so glad you’re awake.”

Harry looks at his lowered head for a moment, mind unfocused and unwilling to start moving. “Where’s Draco?”

Dean looks up, face indecipherable. “Malfoy? He- do you remember the ambush at all?”

Harry shakes his head.

Dean lowers his eyes. “I – I don’t know how to tell you this, Harry…the Death Eaters,” his voice is soft; Harry can’t figure out what it reminds him of. “They got through his wards and cast traps for you, and the Healers say one of them almost got your heart, and Malfoy – he’s dead. When we rounded up the Death Eaters, one of them said something about him protecting you. We couldn’t do anything for him; we got there too late. I’m sorry Harry; I know you’ve been spending a lot of time with him lately. I’m so sorry.”

Harry stares at his hands. “You’re lying,” he hears his own voice lash out, hard. “You’re lying, I know you are.”

Dean looks up, eyes shocked and concerned. “Harry -” he begins.

Molly’s voice echoes down the hall, calling something about Charlie, and excited – Harry looks up as they enter the room. “Where is he?” he demands.

Molly’s face falls. Charlie reaches out a scarred hand, moving forward without hesitation. “Harry,” he pleads, voice worried. “I’m so sorry.”

“No!” Harry shouts, jumping from the constraining hospital bed. “You’re lying, stop lying to me!”

He hears Molly cry his name, turns to face her past Dean’s stricken face, Charlie’s outstretched hand. “He was killed, Harry. You saw it; you know we’re not lying. Please, dear, lie down again, you haven’t the strength for this.” Her voice trembles, but she draws it together, stretches out a comforting tone, always the mother.

Harry glares at her, face grim. “You’re lying. He’s not dead, he can’t be, he never said – stop lying!” He slowly sinks to the floor, shaking his head. “You’re lying, you’re lying, I know you are, I’ve just been with him, please, he isn’t dead, stop lying! He can’t be dead, as tall as mountains, please, he’s not dead, I know -”

***

Tears are streaming down his face, his back against the silent wall. Harry looks desperately into clouded grey eyes.

“It’s nothing to worry about, Draco, darling; the noise has stopped now. I promise we’re safe here, I promise.” He gathers Draco in his arms and continues in a fraught voice, “I love you, I love you and I always have, and I always will. As strong as earthquakes. As devastating as bombs. Oh, I do love you. As aching as war wounds. Please, Draco, I love you. Please.”

***


End file.
